Interview with Digital Goodie’s Principal Engineer and co-founder Lauri Arte
We sat down with one of the founding members of Digital Goodie to talk about his journey with the company and to find out what he does when he’s not creating software.
Hi Lauri. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Lauri and I’ve worked at Goodie since the very beginning (2009). I’ve lived in Helsinki all my life, nowadays I share a home with my wife and two children. I graduated as Master of Philosophy in Mathematics from the University of Helsinki. My studies focused on computer science and mathematics with a scientific computing angle. A couple of years before my graduation I got asked for an interview at Navicore, a Finnish navigation software company, and that’s how my career in software got started.
How did you end up at Digital Goodie, what has your journey been like?
I met Kalle and the rest of the Goodie founders while working at Wayfinder where we built navigation software together. I worked a bit with the internet tablet for Nokia. Kalle (Goodie CEO Kalle Koutajoki) was the one who suggested we should found our own company.
What do you do at Goodie?
I plan and implement databases and I’m strongly involved in designing our architecture and software. Lately I’ve focused on our orchestration platform. During my time here I’ve worked with almost everything you can imagine, except for mobile clients. That is the spirit of working at a start-up, you do what needs to be done. Today it’s different of course, the company has grown and now we all have the opportunity to concentrate on what we’re most interested in. The idea for me is to rotate a little here and there to stay in touch with all of the teams.
Where have you learned the things you know? Where do you learn besides your work?
I learned a lot already in my previous job and I’ve kept learning as I go. You get to know a lot of things by just being self-motivated and finding out by yourself. I’m used to having a pet project or two going on on my spare time (none of which ever get finished, but are valuable in terms of learning new stuff). I try to follow a few bigger open-source projects, like kubernetes, and I maintain some Arch Linux software packages.
What do you enjoy about your job?
I really enjoy exploring new things. Both the fact that new stuff keeps coming up and that I can learn about it and pass on that knowledge. Because of my experience here I often get asked for advice and I consider teaching a part of my job description.
What are the biggest challenges in your work?
The biggest challenge has definitely to do with timing. You need to accept that there will always be things you simply do not have time for, so you need to be able to prioritize. This is not always an easy task to do.
What do you do for fun?
I like to ride bikes and lift weights. I’ve competed in track cycling with some success. Most of my time nowadays goes to my family, I enjoy doing different things with the children.
You spent some time at Digital Goodie’s office in Montréal. How was that, and would you do it again?
It was a great experience; I would definitely do it again. Our office was part of a larger co-working space that accommodated about 30-40 companies from around the world, so there was a lot of social interaction. Montréal is such a cool city and felt rather European to me. The locals were extremely friendly, almost overwhelmingly so, and they’re definitely a lot more talkative than us Finns. I really enjoyed how much sunlight we had throughout the day and obviously the outdoor conditions were fantastic. I really liked the food as well, especially the bagels. Our home was located right next to one of Montréal’s two famous bagel factories, and our whole family became obsessed with bagels. It’s surprising we didn’t gain any more weight.
Name top three qualities of a successful Goodie or anyone wishing to work here?
Self-management/initiative, adaptability, and willingness to learn.
What do you see as the biggest assets for Digital Goodie, what are the things that make us successful?
A great product and the idea behind it, for sure, and the courage to bring it forth. I think the atmosphere we have here plays a big part – we trust in people and the work that they do. Personally I think our diversity is a big asset as well – it’s a fact that culturally diverse organisations perform better. It not only makes this place fun to work at, but also helps us to consider things from various angles.
As you know, we get to invite inspirational people for sponsored lunches. Who would you have lunch with if you could choose anyone?
Donald Knuth. A great figure in the computer science field, but also credited with quotes like “*Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it“.
What would you like to ask from the next person to be interviewed?
If you were to choose any location to go work abroad, where would you go?
Thank you for the interview, Lauri!
